San Francisco Giants Show the Colorado Rockies Something to Be Worried About

The Colorado Rockies wanted to show the San Francisco Giants who’s the boss of the NL West in 2011, but Tim Lincecum and co. had plans of their own.

I’d like to begin this post with stating the obvious: Baseball season is back in full effect.

I love waking up in the morning…or afternoon…or 30 minutes before game time just knowing there is something to look forward to at the end of the day. During off days, entertain yourselves with blogs and matchup previews.

There are plenty of them online. Best form of procrastination, in my humble opinion.

We’ll start off the game in the first inning. Aaron Rowand’s 0-1 lineout could have set the mood of the game, but Freddy Sanchez responded with a double. Follow that with an RBI single by Aubrey Huff and a walk by Pablo Sandoval—yes, you read that correctly, he had two walks for the night—and a home run by Pat Burrell, and you’ve got a good start to the ballgame, at least for Giants fans.

But no, don’t stop there—Nate Schierholtz, starting in right field as Brandon Belt sits and awaits his major league fate, hit a home run to the upper deck of Coors Stadium.

It was 5-0 by the end of the first inning.

The Giants owned the whole game. My twitter feed was exploding more than usual with pride. The whole game was dominated by the G-Men’s offense and Tim Lincecum on the mound. At 5'11", you wonder how this guy gets so much power in his pitch. You’ve probably read that at least 20 times since he made his major league debut, but it never ceases to amaze me.

He went hitless through six, with 10 strikeouts and the only base runners were walks up until Carlos Gonzalez singled to right and later scored off a double by Todd Helton in the bottom of the seventh.

In total, he went 7.2 innings and 115 pitches, 67 of which were strikes. Only one earned run all game, too.

Timmy’s ridiculous.

This was Lincecum’s 28th game with at least 10 strikeouts as well, tying him with Christy Mathewson for the most in franchise history. At only 26, I’m pretty sure Timmy will be passing that mark very soon.

Ryan Vogelsong made his debut tonight. He did alright, besides the ground-rule double he gave to Helton. If he blows us away while Zito’s on the DL, Bochy has some difficult decisions to make.

For many Giants fans, this game was more than a win and a way to close the gap in the standings. In April, it’s hard to really care a whole lot about who’s in the lead.

When you’ve got 20 games left in the season, then we’ll talk.

But no, for many Giants fans, this was a way to show the Rockies that while yes, Troy Tulowitzki is scary, they are, in fact, quite beatable. This season excites me because we’ve got an intense series in its first month.

We’re going to have some fun games this year and it’s pretty clear to me that, once again, the NL West Champion will not be decided until the very end.

Last thought: Shout out to Schierholtz. Dude’s hitting .292 and was 3-for-4 tonight with a home run. Nate’s done enough to prove to me he’s too much of a necessity to the team to even be considered in hot water as Cody Ross makes his way back to the roster.

On that note, Ross is back soon! I’m not expecting NLCS fireworks, but some competent fielding and constantly having an actual right fielder will be nice for a change.

I’ve still got Ashkon’s tribute to Ross on my iPod though, in case the occasion calls.